


In The Meantime

by sunsetrose20



Series: Once Noble [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetrose20/pseuds/sunsetrose20
Summary: That time Sigyn finally heard the story of Sleipnir's birth from Loki and how Loki came to have a list of Thor's children, aka the reason why Loki walked to the marketplace.
Relationships: Loki & Sleipnir (Marvel), Loki/Sigyn (Marvel), Loki/Svadilfari (Marvel)
Series: Once Noble [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672765
Kudos: 6





	In The Meantime

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is not the Loki's POV I was talking about. It is one of those two works that come before it. It was originally in third person POV, but since the multi-chaptered work from Loki's POV will be in first person POV, I've decided to make the change here, too. It flows better, I think?
> 
> By the way, the italicized sections are what is happening in the present.
> 
> Thoughts, ideas, comments, and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Contrary to popular belief, I did not trip. If I had tripped, I would not have been able to return to the palace, or the stables as it were, on my own. No, I stopped running because I was… tired. After running constantly from a horse whose stamina appeared to know no bounds, I thought it reasonable to be tired. My muscles were burning, white foam forming on my fur. I needed to stop. And so I did. 

The stallion needed to be distracted for three days. The sun was near to setting on the second day of running. It was alright to stop. I could stop, if only I put enough distance between the horse and myself to give me enough time to shift. But Svaðilfari was faster, stronger than I had gauged. I was easily overcome, and I… panicked. I had shapeshifted before and was skilled in the art considering I practiced sparingly, but that meant nothing when the shift needed to happen in a matter of seconds. I panicked; I was unable to shift. I collapsed in on myself. There was a horse rutting into my body, and, perhaps, if I shut my eyes tightly, I could pretend it was not happening to me, or, perhaps, I could pretend that this was like any other time. If I shut my eyes close and set aside for a moment that I was a man and not, in fact, a mare, then it was like any other time. The intrusion was always more of an insult to my mind than it ever was to my body. 

But those are semantics. 

When the beast was content, seemingly sure that it had bred me, it did not leave as many thought, but it stayed to groom me, nibbling on my back and neck. It left once Thor appeared with his search party, too late for all I cared. The deed was done. When my brother approached, I scampered to my… hooves. Then, I tripped.

It’s in the details, I suppose.

Thor frowned at me, brow furrowed. “You can shift back now, Brother. You needed not go this far.”

It was never clear to me if Thor was referring to my being mounted by the horse or my venturing to where the forest became thick. I knew my brother had been coming, had been chasing behind me at a distance, and that had been my comforting thought through much of the ordeal. But Thor came late. He had lost sight of us. 

I never did know what became of Svaðilfari.

Thor moved with measured steps to brush a hand over my neck. “Are you trapped?” Worry was palpable in his voice, but what was he expecting of me when only snorts and whinnies and squeals could pass my lips? “Oh, Loki, I'm sorry I took so long, but the people know the mare we released was you. Father knows not how the rumors spread.”

I flickered my ears. What was there to say? What _could_ I say? It was done. It mattered not when a stable boy ran screaming the news that the pregnant mare was the second prince. Although, of course, that came in later when we were at the stables and my fears as to why I couldn't shift back were confirmed. 

The beast had planted its seed in my borrowed womb. 

Shapeshifting was always a wonder. I remember hearing stories of shapeshifters as a young boy and thinking that I, too, would one day master the art. I was giddy, going as far as to giggle to myself, when I was told I was a natural at shapeshifting. Naturally, that was not all to which I had aspired, but this was one step closer to what I had craved since boyhood. To be someone, something else. To experience the world as others did. To not be confined to myself, my body, the impediments of a humanoid figure. To not be Loki, second prince of Asgard, the spare. 

That wonder was gone now. Once more, I was shackled, forced to remain in a single body. The difference being that this time, the cage was not my own. I was still Loki; my form would never change that. I would always be Loki. But being Loki did not mean I was Loki, brother of Thor, son of Frigga and Odin. Especially not as a pregnant mare. 

_“My, was that not a deviation?”_

_“Keep talking, Loki.”_

In any case, I would say the problem was not the pregnancy as much as it was the birth. Sure, being pregnant with an eight-legged horse, no matter that I was a horse at the time, was uncomfortable and painful, but birthing said eight-legged horse was a whole different level of uncomfortable and painful. 

_Sleipnir pawed at the ground with a nicker, shaking my arms off of him, to what I said, “Don't worry, darling. I love you, too.”_

_Hrafn rolled her eyes. “Loki, focus.”_

Right. I had not seen the danger of using seiðr for copulation and conception before Sleipnir, did not realize the dangers existed until a later greater misfortune in Jötunheimr, but they were shoved in my face by the foal's abnormality. It had eight legs, and my body had not been ready for that. The birth of the foal was supposed to end my suffering, not add to it. I had looked forward to it every single day. Every day I was closer to the end. But, as I panicked when Svaðilfari closed the distance between us, I panicked as the end of the tunnel stretched out of my reach at the news that the foal was not passing through. It, or well _he_ , did eventually, but I just needed Ragnarök to come upon us at that moment. 

Where was Thor during all this, you might ask?

My brother took upon himself the job to groom me, keep me fed, and watch me take a walk around the perimeter of the field, working much as a stable boy would, with the exception that Thor talked all the damn time, rejoicing in the knowledge that I could not reply. My brother was there for the birth of the foal, too. As I said, one more stable boy. Mother could not bear to see me in my state. She stood outside sobbing while I whinnied in distress. It was my brother, and centuries later I can still not believe it, who helped me through the birth with comments such as “Didn't you say you have high pain tolerance?” and “You know what to do, Brother. Remember all the times you have helped me with the other mares.”

The desire to scream that those had been actual mares and not _me_ in my brother's face was what got me through the ordeal. 

My chapter with Sleipnir should have ended there, but the foal went from being an _it_ to a _he_ , from _foal_ to _son_ , once he stood on his shaky, dysmorphic legs and nuzzled against me, his mother, in search of milk. In the beginning, I was more disgusted at Sleipnir’s suckling than at myself for birthing him. What changed? I’m not sure. Sleipnir was, quite frankly, disgusting. Demanding to be fed, wanting to be groomed, following me around, stumbling every other step, being a _horse_ … What was there to love? I was free, free from this body, from Sleipnir… So, why stay in the form of a mare?

There was a blanket and neatly folded garments hung on a fence, waiting for me to shift back. I had been nibbling on Sleipnir’s withers when Thor brought them with a smile. “Here are your clothes, Brother. Ready for whenever you wish to shift back.”

But “whenever” actually meant sometime that day. I tried to comply with the demand and did, in fact, shift smoothly. I swung the blanket around my shoulders and knelt to brush Sleipnir's fur. This was goodbye, it seemed. Or it should have been. I had not thought about what would become of my son. He would be kept at the stables, surely, and that was it. I should not think about Sleipnir as my son, but it was evident that Sleipnir knew I was his mother when the foal neighed in distress, pressing his nuzzle against me. Sleipnir knew his mother was there, but he did not appear to recognize me, soon wandering out to the field making a mixture of sounds I could no longer understand. I was, deep within the confines of my mind, equally disturbed by the lack of recognition, for I dropped the blanket and went back to being a mare. My family's sympathy ended the moment I did so. 

The next time I saw my brother, Thor's face was stern. “We want you to take your time, Loki. Have whatever you need to overcome your tribulation, but Father would like you to remember that foals are weaned before the sixth month.”

At dawn, before the mark of the sixth month of Sleipnir's birth, unmindful of my son sleeping by my side, I was once more forced to shift into a body I did not want.

~°•°~

“So, that's why you don't shapeshift anymore?” Sigyn inquired. 

I reclined back against Sleipnir's side and moved Váli in my arms, so his full weight wouldn't rest on top of me. “Were you expecting some horror? A tragedy, perhaps?”

Sigyn stretched her arms out in front of her, fluttering her lashes innocently. “I think your life's pretty sad the way it is.”

I chuckled and pressed my cheek against Váli’s auburn hair. “Why, thank you. I think it turned out alright.” I glanced at Sleipnir's flickering ears and sighed. “It happened centuries before you were born. It was a long time ago.”

“If it was ‘a long time ago,’ then why don't you try shapeshifting again? You know I'd love to see that.”

“Mm-hmm. It is one of the first things you asked me, I think.”

“Well, I have another question, but you're not allowed to think I'm weird.” Hrafn snuggled closer to me. It was strange thinking of her as Sigyn after so long of calling her Hrafn. “After that, how long did it take you before you were intimate with someone?”

The heat crept up all the way to my ears. My first fucks after Sleipnir’s birth were not as scarring as being mounted by Svaðilfari, but they were close. Aftermath and whatnot. Naturally, I had to test myself. What was I if not resilient? And what better way to test that statement than by being mounted again? Needless to say, I hadn’t been ready.

Norns, did she think about some weird things. 

“Some centuries,” I confessed. “Mostly, I was waiting for my father to arrange a marriage for me. Trying to behave.”

Fornicating hadn’t seemed like a pressing matter until one of my old companions approached me in a tavern, whispering a rather appealing suggestion in my ear. Thor had been sitting beside me and patted my back as my apparent bedpartner strode away. The man’s confidence—or rather his bravery in the face of a possible beating from Thor—was all the more alluring. It was perfect, I’d decided. The perfect time to test myself.

“I see,” Hrafn murmured, dropping her head on my shoulder. “Have you thought about being intimate with me?” I sputtered—were we not just talking about my rape, as she insisted on calling it?—and Sigyn shoved me playfully. “Come on, don't be prudish. We live in the same house. Hel, we sleep in the same _bed_.” 

By the gods, what did she think a golden apple meant? And did she have to mention Hel? I supposed Sigyn wouldn't know what it meant to me. 

“I'm going to be honest with you, Loki. I've had a crush on you since you were my tutor, and I think you see me as a child.”

I cleared my throat. The latter wasn’t completely untrue. “You _are_ young, Hrafn.”

Sigyn gave me a dirty look. “I look the same age as you.”

“You flatter me,” I said and kissed her forehead. “But I believe you said I'm getting old?”

Sigyn gave me a harsher shove, yet mindful of the child sleeping on my chest. “Just answer the damn question.”

I swallowed. This wasn’t the most novel of conversations. “I have. For quite some time.” I chuckled softly. To myself, mostly. “It made your embraces awkward, I assure you. Unlike my family, I've had some trouble reconciling the fact that I'm centuries, millennia older than most.”

~°•°~

Before the humans had a word for mischief, long before I became chaos, I was a patron divinity of children. Nothing fancy, yet the mortals prayed to me for aid. Then, the “nobles” expanded, there came people better suited for the job, and I acquired a mischievous, sometimes even malicious spirit.

The mortals stopped praying. 

As I said, it was a long time ago, and long-lived creatures are no longer allowed to meddle in mortal affairs, so that isn’t the point.

The point is that I knew there was no place for my son except in the stables. I knew I had a life to return to, and that perhaps remaining as a mare wouldn’t be seen as healthy by others, but I had not expected to be forbidden from seeing Sleipnir. Perhaps my family was right, and I had been taking refuge from my misfortune in the colt. That was my problem, wasn’t it? But that isn’t the point, either. Not precisely. My refuge from my separation from Sleipnir was children. If I could not cherish my own, then I would cherish Asgard’s future. And it was so for a time. 

_“Remind me the point of this story?”_

_Sigyn huffed. “The list, Loki.”_

Right. For a time, Asgard's second prince could be found at the center of the citadel showcasing his seiðr to the children. They were simple tricks. Illusions of butterflies, a variety of birds including the mythical phoenix, sometimes miniature dragons, or stories from all across the realms. By that time, I only knew that the golden apples my mother insisted on feeding me were a symbol of love amongst nobles, gods, whatever you wish to call them, but not that it slowed my aging to this extent. Not that it stretched my life long enough that I could see _Asgardian_ children grow into adults while I remained more or less the same. It was disconcerting to realize that the children that now came wide-eyed to me were the offspring of the first generation of children I had once entertained. How did this happen? If these were Asgardians I was talking about, how short were mortal lives?

But that was not my only discovery. As things were, the itch that had driven me to scratch my skin raw as a young boy was the result of my seiðr being suppressed, locked away without my consent. To the people's displeasure, my gift broke the seal over and over again. By Asgardian law, a seal must be placed on every boy who expresses the gift. How was I supposed to know that? But the problem was that I, their own prince, had been thoughtlessly teaching the children to break their seals, to use their seiðr. They were curious about the art after watching me perform, and how could I say no to their cute little faces?

_“How is this related to your list?” Sigyn asked at my reminiscent expression._

_“Hrafn, I swear I will stop talking if you keep interrupting me.”_

_“Excuse you. You do that fine on your own.”_

So, to move things along, I was accused of public disruption and negligence. Higher-ranking people wanted me banned from the marketplace, but as Father had said, I was allowed to have whatever I needed to forget about Sleipnir, and if this is what I needed, then so be it. The people were most displeased with Father’s decree. However, I decided that Father's scowls were not worth the trouble when my presence was so unwanted, so unappreciated. It was _my_ time I was offering them. Freely, at that. A gift considering the extensive waiting list in which people would find themselves in order to be heard by Father or Mother or even Thor. Well, I had my own official waiting list, but, as aforementioned, did they forget it was _my_ time we were discussing?

The truth was that, by then, I had improved my cloaking enough that I could visit Sleipnir. Nevertheless, my time spent at the marketplace was not forgotten by all. 

Between the time that I began “disrupting” the peace and retreated back to the palace, three women stumbled into my path claiming to carry my brother's child and four tugged at my tunic with the same claim, asking for my help. If I remember correctly, I thought that more children meant a greater audience, so why not? Children seemed scarce lately, and, quite frankly, it was rather obvious that Father wanted me out of the palace and out of the library, though the training grounds were what he must have had in mind. Then, idiots came babbling on about me spreading my argr ways; hence, “public disruption.” Naturally, my strategic retreat followed after the “horse incident,” as they seemed to call it, was shoved in my face by people from all ages. 

After my retreat, two women sought out an audience with me, and I tracked four other women down with the help of Lady Eir. And Hel if the energy radiating from them wasn't the same one Thor had used to shock me as children. Those I helped because children are children. Most of them did not have stigmas against me, or against anything else, truly. I imagine that is why I was a “danger” to them. They were innocent enough that I could “corrupt” them and “persuade” them to my side. In essence, ever since I was “banned” from the marketplace, children crossing my path were rare, giving me a reason to help those women. And, well, they were my nephews and nieces. Family. If I could not have children of my own, I would make do with my brother's. Truthfully, I think I would have helped them even if the children they carried hadn’t been Thor’s.

Between those thirteen women and staving off the “Anti-Loki movement” (which I now know was led by Sigyn's oh, so wonderful father. Are the Norns not gracious?), I tracked four Midgardian children and their descendants, which led me to the conclusion that Midgardians were better left alone. Fine. No, that was not my actual conclusion. It was that Thor's mortal children managed to accomplish more than I had so far in all my centuries and that, in hindsight, it was rather idiotic to say I was Loki, Norse god of mischief to people who believed I was this person called “the devil.” As a further matter, Midgardians were _not_ happy, and I cannot stress that enough, if I did not pretend to be burnt by this thing called “holy water.” But I could do that.

Now, it is important to note that the people could not actually ban my arse from the marketplace, for I spent too much gold there, as my parents often remarked, though it was for a good cause. It was for the mothers of Thor's children and the adorable, little parasites who did not know something such as dark hair existed. Not that I ever said that aloud before. Definitely not to their mothers.

Then, of course, an adorable, little redhead crashed into my leg and glared at me as if it were my fault. _She must be new_ , I thought, _for I have not seen her in the marketplace before._ I knew about every child there despite their parents vehement protests, as if they had not been enthralled by my seiðr once upon a time. 

_Finally! Another adorable, little parasite!_

Centuries later, the red-headed parasite turned out to be the last woman on my list, and her son realised I was allowed to be something other than blond. If another woman asks for my help, I will find it difficult to come out of retirement to say the least.

~°•°~

There is always some degree of mortification when I dwell for too long on my relationship with Sigyn. It is not because she was pregnant with my brother's bastard child, as I know Hrafn thinks, but because she is the right age to have been part of the second generation of children I watched over in the marketplace. It is true, however, that I am aging faster than I should. Despite the age difference between us, Sigyn has managed to catch up with me, and if we continue like this, she will one day leave me behind. Like Frigga before me, I am feeding Sigyn half of my golden apple without informing her of the consequences. But half an apple does not have the same exact effect of a whole apple. I wonder, not for the first time, what Hrafn did with the apple I gifted her. After discovering that they were not available to the whole of Asgard’s populace, I admit to having a _mild_ obsession with aging and apples. And I do mean mild. There is also the fact that I haven't succeeded in replicating the apples’ effects. How do the mortals manage such a short lifespan?

Another of my concerns is Sigyn's concern of my marrying another woman. She is right to worry, unfortunately. Mother has wanted Thor and I to marry since time immemorial, but I refuse to marry a cousin. Although Mother knows this, it is currently out of my hands, I believe.

On my final trip to Jötunheimr, I cannot help but wonder why it matters to Sigyn whether or not I marry when she has refused me. Twice now, may I add. Is life not wondrous?


End file.
